Showman to the stars

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Once a bear, now an impresario, John-Michael Howson is
back in Melbourne and loving it, writes Paul Edwards.

Forty years ago he got into showbiz in a bear suit. Now
John-Michael Howson is having the time of his life - except he
won't admit what that time is.

"We're living in an ageist society," he says. "Put a label on
somebody and it becomes a use-by date. Some of the brightest stars
in the world can't get work because they're a certain age. So I
don't talk about it."

Although he is undeniably of a certain age, the former citizen
of West Hollywood is on a roll, with one musical scheduled to open
at the State Theatre in January, another planned for revival as an
arena spectacular and a third set for a 2007 premiere.

Dusty - The Musical has been a long time coming, with its
beginning in 2001. The complex process of turning a concept into
reality has brought the showbiz guru back to his home town.

"Melbourne was where I needed to be, so I came back to live here
and wrap up the show. In any case, I was getting tired of going
backwards and forwards to Hollywood and interviewing actors about
their latest film or whatever they wanted to publicise at the time
and I want to give this project everything I've got.

"It's nice to pop up on radio and TV here and there but that's
not enough, is it? You need to do more than that with your life,
don't you? Anyway, Shout, the musical based on Johnny
O'Keefe, showed me that you can build a hugely successful show
around a star, so I started to look for more subjects to follow a
similar format."

With David Mitchell and Melvyn Morrow, who had co-written the
O'Keefe show, Howson drew up a list of likely names, then cut it
back to Dusty Springfield, Graham Kennedy and Bobby Darin.

It was considered that Kennedy, then ailing and reclusive, would
not have international appeal and also was not associated with a
body of music. Darin, who died during heart surgery in 1973, aged
37, was to be the subject of a Kevin Spacey film, Beyond the
Sea.

So Dusty was the choice. She had died two years earlier, was
still a familiar name, had made enough hit records to fill a
musical score with ease and had lived her life in the kind of
angst-laden turmoil that would add drama to what could have been
just another frothy musical.

Born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, in London in
1939, she and her brother, Tom, formed a group called the
Springfields, had a hit with Silver Threads and Golden
Needles, then went their separate ways - the brother to write
several hits for the Seekers, the sister to stardom.

Our Dusty, as she was known to her devoted fans in England,
represented sooty-eyed British cool in the early '60s. She affected
beehive wigs and fringes, flouncy dresses or leather miniskirts,
enormous eyelashes and pale pink lipstick. From the start there was
speculation about her sexuality, even though she was linked with
dashing young men of her day, including David Frost.

Success came at a price - she had substance abuse problems, an
almost paralysing lack of self-confidence and early in her career
was terrified that she would be outed as a lesbian.

"We don't ignore this in the show but it's not the central
theme," Howson says. "Dusty was famous for being a brilliant
entertainer, not for being a lesbian. But we need to put a
spotlight on her life - you can't just have a girl singing songs
and call it a show."

Her vulnerability and inner torment shone through in much of her
work, which briefly made her Britain's most successful soloist, an
acclaimed interpreter of the works of Burt Bacharach and perhaps
the best white soul singer of her time with hits on both sides of
the Atlantic.

Her time at the top was short - perhaps six years - but she won
the respect of fans, critics, peers and music professionals in a
way that contemporaries Cilla Black and Lulu never managed.

The Dusty style was similar to that of Shirley Bassey - powerful
melodies, big orchestrations, over-the-top hand gestures, heart
clutching histrionics. "There was nobody like her," Howson says.
"The sad thing is, she never knew how good she was and was never
very happy, poor love.

"Her style quickly went out of fashion and then she had nowhere
to go. For years she'd virtually disappear, then pop up again with
a comeback attempt."

Her hits included Son of a Preacher Man, The Look of
Love, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me (played over her
funeral march) I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself and
Windmills of My Mind, which she reportedly hated because she
couldn't understand the lyrics.

Howson will not reveal which of her songs he has used in the
musical, or how he has worked towards that prerequisite of popular
stage shows - the upbeat ending.

Chronology might seem to be against him there - Springfield's
own ending was anything but happy. She died in 1999 after lengthy
treatment for breast cancer, on the day she was due to collect her
OBE from the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

Her manager, Vicki Wickham, had earlier taken the award to the
singer's hospital bed in a plastic shopping bag. Springfield had a
showbiz funeral at a church in Henley on Thames and her brother
scattered her ashes from the lonely cliffs of Moher, western
Ireland.

"That sort of thing doesn't leave you walking out with a big
smile on your face but there's lots of ways to get a powerful
ending," Howson says. "You'll have to wait and see."

Similarly, Howson will not confirm who will play the lead role,
although it is known that Tamsin Carroll, with whom he worked on
Shout, has starred in a well-received workshop of the
musical and is the likely star.

"We all admire the way Wendy Stapleton has done Dusty on stage
but she wasn't our choice for this," Howson says.

"A lot of the action takes place when Dusty is a very young
woman so we need someone who can bring that off."

The show is scheduled to open at the State Theatre on January 7
next year. Theatres in other capitals have been booked, including
Sydney's Lyric, and negotiations are under way for a season in
Singapore.

Producer Dennis Smith is negotiating a London production and
there is talk of a try-out in the US, where Springfield is still
remembered.

The cost of staging the musical has been estimated at $8
million, much of which has been underwritten by first-time "angel"
John Gilbert, a builder and developer.

Howson, who has dual Australian-US citizenship, says he now
feels more at home here than in West Hollywood and is enjoying a
flurry of creative writing and deal-making.

With friend Peter Pinne he has co-written another stage show
called Pyjamas in Paradise, set in the early days of the
Gold Coast.

"This is looking like a goer," he says. "It's taking a while to
get off the ground but no more than usual. We played it to an
invited audience in Brisbane and got very good feedback - now we
need those elusive investors."

The O'Keefe show, often described as perhaps the best Australian
musical, may soon be reworked as an arena production, similar to
Grease and Howson is also dusting off a concept he wrote
many years ago, set in Squizzie Taylor's Melbourne.

Howson, introduced to show business as a cadet reporter on
Mildura's Sunraysia Daily, has writing credits back to the
early days of Australian television. He also played Clown in
Adventure Island, Fifi Bear in Magic Circle Club
and acted in several forgettable films, including Houseboat
Horror, generally reckoned to be the worst ever made here.

"I'm the luckiest person I know," he says. "My dear old mum -
God rest her soul - told me not to go into show business because
there was no security. But paradoxically this is what has always
made me feel reasonably secure - living on my wits and using
whatever bit of talent I have.

"The Hollywood thing and all the travelling have been wonderful
- one of my greatest experiences was touring the Cote d' Azur in a
1936 Mercedes open tourer. And it's hard to top having lunch in St
Paul de Vence with Yves Montand and Simone Signoret.

"But being back in Australia is nice and in any case it's easy
to get to places like London and New York to catch up with new
shows. Doing what I'm doing is incredibly exciting and writing as
part of a team is the best drug you can get."

New challenges for Howson include his job as president of the
Australian Musical Development Organisation, formed to help develop
new stage shows. He is also chairman of a panel that will decide
which 100 Australian entertainers will be remembered in a Docklands
walk of fame.

Howson, who has a weekly spot on Channel Ten's Good Morning
Australia and with Ernie Sigley on 3AW, is also a director of
Roho Productions, set up to develop new TV shows. Roho hopes to
have a new children's show in production by early 2006. "That just
about makes it full circle," he says. "Roho co-director Bruce
Rowland and I worked together on Magic Circle Club 40 years
ago. This time around I won't be playing a bear."